Juan Cole: US Fights Three Wars in Iraq; McClatchy Says Military Digging Into Mosul

Tom Ricks of WaPo says that the US military sees itself as fighting 3 wars: http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn&q=

1. The war against Arab volunteers ("al-Qaeda")

2. The war against Sunni Arab Iraqi dissidents

3. The war against Shiite militias.

The officers he talks to feel good about the second war, which they feel has petered out as Sunni Iraqis have joined the Awakening Councils. They also think they have made progress against the foreign fighters, which they call "al-Qaeda." But they worry most of all about the third war, against Shiite special groups, which they allege deploy roadside bombs against US troops.

In my view, Washington always vastly overestimated the foreign infiltrators, who are a small group that cannot possibly be responsible for as much of the violence as Bush charges.

Likewise, they underestimate the activeness of the Iraqi Sunni Arabs. While the latter may not be fighting US troops as much in al-Anbar, they are still militant in Diyala, Salahuddin and Ninevah Provinces. And some of the operations blamed on "al-Qaeda" are actually those of local Sunni Arabs instead.

The US military seems to read all uses of explosively formed projectiles as Iranian and Shiite. I don't find that plausible and I see notices of US troops being killed by them in Sunni Arab neighborhoods.

As for the Shiite militias being the most dangerous of all, that would depend on what exactly you were planning to do to the Shiite population. It is certainly the case that the Sadrists could well take over Iraq in the 2009 elections, and that their Mahdi Army would then form the National Guard of Iraq, and that they are hostile to the US.

http://www.juancole.com/2008/02/us-fights-three-wars-in-iraq.html


The military in Iraq sees Mosul as their next Baghdad-like line in the sand . . .

Mosul next major test for U.S. in Iraq
Military says devastated city plagued by terrorists, religious tensions

MOSUL, Iraq -- Iraq's third-largest city looks like Baghdad did a year ago.

U.S. soldiers drive armored Humvees and tanks through a decimated and dusty landscape. Burned-out cars sit on the street corners, and trash and chunks of concrete litter the medians and the gutters.

Poor people from the countryside have flooded the city, but the streets and sidewalks are mostly deserted.

U.S. officials say that al-Qaida in Iraq and other terrorist groups have a significant presence in the city and that Mosul is a gathering point for foreign fighters coming across the border from nearby Syria.

Terrorists aren't Mosul's only problem. The city's Sunni and Shiite Muslim Arabs detest each other, and the Arabs distrust the city's Kurdish, Christian and Turkmen minorities.

Although 60 percent of Mosul's population of 1.8 million is Sunni, three-quarters of the provincial government is Kurdish, and the Arabs suspect the Kurds of wanting to take over the city.
{snip}

How Iraqi and American forces fare in Mosul will test whether the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy and additional American troops can defeat the insurgents or whether they will keep pushing them around Iraq.

U.S. and Iraqi forces are using the formula developed in Baghdad -- building outposts where there's been no security presence and setting up police stations around the city . . .

http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080203/NEWS/802030448/1033/NEWS01